Weekend predictions: Aquaman leads a cavalcade of new releases on Christmas weekend

December 22, 2023

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

With ten films opening or expanding wide over five days, one might think we’ll see records broken this Christmas weekend. Alas, it doesn’t look as though there’s a standout film in the pack, although there’s certainly plenty to choose from. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is set to take the crown, and five out the top six will be new in wide release according to our model. So there’s lots to dig into today.

Here’s our model’s baseline prediction for Aquaman:

Needless to say, super hero movies have had a mediocre year at best, and the DC Extended Universe is going out with more of a whimper than a bang, but Aquaman 2 has generated quite a lot of interest and has a prime release spot. It’s also following a well-received and profitable first Aquaman movie, which debuted with $67.9 million back in 2018. This outing isn’t expected to hit that kind of number, but $50 million plus was on the cards according to the model.

The preview numbers don’t look quite as good as that:

The original Aquaman made less than five times its preview numbers on opening weekend, and having Christmas Eve on Sunday isn’t going to help Lost Kingdom. A weekend a little over $30 million seems reasonable to me, but it could fall a little short of that and make up for lost time during holiday week. Its biggest headwind is quite poor reviews.

The model thinks Migration will land second this weekend.

Its tracking numbers haven’t been that good (an audience adjustment of -15% is quite low for this time of year), but it’s an animated family movie without very much competition, so it seemed to have a good chance of breaking out to me.

Its previews suggest that hasn’t happened yet.

Our model has a bit of hard time modeling animated films, and I think going past $20 million over the weekend is a good bet for this one. The real question is what its legs will look like. Its 70%-positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes suggest it could take off going into the New Year.

The R-rated romantic comedy Anyone But You is this season’s piece of counter-programming.

Romantic movies of all stripes have struggled since the pandemic, and the model was looking for something a little short of $10 million this weekend. The previews look good for this kind of film though…

The big caveat here is that romantic comedies generally come with high Thursday-to-weekend multipliers, and this isn’t a typical weekend. A low multiplier and a weekend under $20 million seems likely, but it’s definitely a hard one to predict even with some solid numbers behind it now.

The last new release likely to hit the top 10 is The Iron Claw:

Its previews are coming in just a little better than expected:

Hitting $10 million seems a stretch for this one, but something well over $5 million is a good bet.

Here’s what the model thinks that top 10 will look like.

Note that Poor Things expands wide this weekend, and should mean that five out of the top six films are “new in wide release.” With The Color Purple, The Boys in the Boat and Ferrari all opening on Christmas Day, we might have a situation next week where eight of the top ten are basically new in theaters.

That’s a lot for audiences to choose from. But the fact is that we’re going to have a fairly quiet Holiday Season overall. If Wonka, Migration, and The Color Purple have good legs, things might not look too dire going into the New Year, but we could well be struggling to hit $100 million in total each weekend as we go into 2024, and there’s not much coming out in January.

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Filed under: Weekend Preview, Migration, The Color Purple, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Ferrari, The Iron Claw, The Boys in the Boat, Poor Things, Anyone But You, DC Extended Universe